Dog Bay on Isla Tiburon to Los Cocinas 25 miles north of San Carlos
Thursday May 13th
Today’s the day we head to Kino Bay to get a few supplies (mainly ice) before we head south towards San Carlos. Kino is 18 miles to our east and an easy reach across the channel with light morning breeze from the south. Stark contrast from yesterday as we lounge on the foredeck sailing at 4kts. Another day without motors.
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Kino Bay has an eight mile beach front with homes, condos & RV parks and is a winter visitor destination. Not many of the houses appear open so many may have gone home for the summer already.
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Wind is perfect as we arrive at the north end of New Kino and sail the entire beach to Old Kino were we can hit the store. We’ve not used much gas since we’ve sailed only with light motor or no motors so far in this leg.
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Houses range from very modest to grand casas like the one below. Our new friends that caught the yellow tail and shared it with us in El Burro have a place here. Not knowing where, we listened closely to the radio as we made the pass down the beach but never received a call. We will need to get more details so we might link up in the future.
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One of the interesting practices the ponga fisherman use here is their high speed beach landings through the surf. They approach going like hell and slide the boat about 15′ above the surf line. This makes for another business. The bottom repair specialist. You can see the boat tipped in the back ground. It’s getting a fresh glass coat on her keel for future high speed landings. Cynthia shot a video of the landing that I can add later.
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Swells are running directly on the beach at 1-2′ making our beach landing a little extra challenging. A little wet and 2 trips back to the boat, we’re off to anchor in the south Kino anchorage with protection from these south winds.
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Cynthia takes her turn at the helm. We’re out 2 miles and in 16′ feet of water. The south bay has an estuary much like Cholla Bay. It’s shallow and lots of it dries at low tides.
< This shimper reck lies near the point of the south bay. Looks like it’s been there a while, although there’s still nets on her??
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We take anchor in the second bay from the point that’s listed in the cruising guides in 8′ of water. It’s a new moon and we’re not sure we will have enough water for tonight’s low tide.
There’s an abandoned panga on the beach in front of us. Frankie wants to tow it back to Cholla and make a flower planter out of it 🙂 Spades games are running later each night.
Friday May 14th
4:30 AM.. Alarms go off and we have rotated with winds now from the north and only have 2.9′ under us (at least that’s what the depth indicators says). San Carlos tides have turned and should be heading in. Is it the same here? We pull 40′ of our anchor rode in helping a little. Back to bed.. 30 minutes latter.. Tide still heading out and still not enough light to make our safe exit. 30 minutes later… We’ve got the light and tides seem to be bottomed out. Anchor up and we ease our way to deeper water passing over one last shoal that read 2.2 and nothing touched to my surprise. Great anchorage but not for full/new moons extreme tides.
Bruce watches depth as we head out and the sun rises behind us..
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Two miles south of the Kino point (Punta Hueso de la Bellena) we found a beautiful beach to anchor in front of and do our morning things (listen to weather, breakie, Neely beach run).
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Looks like some sort of beach development going on here. As we head out we see buildings under construction on the similar beach in the next bay south. We see why they would be developing the area as it’s an awesome beach for barefoot beach combing.
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A few miles further south sand dunes drop directly to the beach. Looks like a fun place to bring a boogie board sand board down the dunes.
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Heading south winds are from offshore for a while allowing us to motor sail then turn SW and we soon have motors off and doing 6kts. Yet another good sailing day.. Leg 3 rules.. and we can relax on the foredeck with flat seas.. 🙂
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Bruce has sailing duty today and is busy managing the dual head sails. Flatter seas allow us to cut the corner on Punta Baja where the water depth is only 7′. Not to be done if there are waves. Another
bonus for staying close to shore.. We have occasional internet connections and are able to send out our update.
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The shallow warmer Punta Baja water is infested with Portuguese men of war jellyfish. No swimming here. I watched an occasionally jellyfish stew come out of our kicker motor.
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Our early start made the 40 mile leg to Los Cocinas pass quickly and as usual Neely is especially happy for a quick shore visit.
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Winds out of the south, we have nice protection from the reef extending northward from the point. It’s going to be a a calm night.
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Looking SW in our Los Coninas anchorage.
Saturday May 15th
Off to San Carlos and our last day of Baja 2010 🙁 🙁 🙁
Until the next Update
Above ^^ Crain foot prints at Los Cocinas anchorage
And, Lowell, you have had time, while Bruce is the Captain.. to play with the fotos! Love the croppage of the ponga/flower bed.. and the post card effect of the bird prints… Oh… and LOVE all the other images too! You guys really are having good karma coming back at you! So glad you’ve been able to “Sail” so much of the time… BLISSFUL no doubt!
Gee doesn’t seem possible that you guys are on the last leg of your 2010 journey!! By reading all the posts and admiring all the pictures…………..it was another awesome adventure! Safe travels and thanks for the updates. 😛
Oh, such good memories seeing familiar places that I was priveleged to go to in years past. Thanks for sharing it with us all.
It’s over 🙁 But we have lots of great memories and new friends.. We can’t wait to do it again.
Gato Loco is tucked away at Marina Real, gased, watered, washed and ready for the next crew. We will be in Cholla early afternoon tomorrow (sunday) and heading to Phx on Tuesday. Hope to see our Cholla friends..
We will be arriving in Cholla this afternoon too! Looking forward to hearing the whole story!
Lot’s of excitement to see the wonderful part of your life that you have just experienced, and waiting until Doug’s tour of duty. It is so thrilling to be there with all of you by works of Lowell’s pictures. Awesome